Instructify

BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

As much as I love maps, they occasionally frustrate me. By their very nature –- distorting a spherical earth to appear on a two-dimensional surface -– maps can represent the world inaccurately and lead to misunderstandings. Consider the Greenland problem in the Mercator projection. When something looks larger or smaller, we easily jump to conclusions about its importance.

But why not use distortion as a teaching tool? Distorting the world in the right ways can give us new insights, and that’s exactly what the Our Changing World map from FedEx does. Choose a topic and watch the size of each country morph to reflect the data. Certain parts of the world will expand or shrink depending on the value of their exports or their number of computer users, for example. Clicking below the map will bring up more detail about how the topic is changing the world. You can even compare two maps side-by-side (click “explore” in the upper right).

You may be skeptical about a resource produced by a corporation, but this map is truly more informational than commercial. There are no advertisements other than a small FedEx logo and occasional mention of the company’s name in the explanations.

This map is a fantastic way to show data visually, but it also makes a great jumping-off point to discuss maps’ power to represent information and influence our perceptions. Students could even research a topic and create their own distorted maps, though it’s probably best for them to focus on one region of the world.

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BY KEVIN HODGSON

The emergence of map mash-ups continues to provide opportunities for students to go places in the world without ever leaving the classroom. More and more developers are now using the Google Maps and Google Street framework for creating interesting sites for exploring the world’s geography and cultures. MapCrunch taps into the growing archive of Google Street Views, which are detailed on-the-ground snapshots of towns, cities and areas all over the globe.

MapCrunch allows you to randomly tour spots on the earth, or choose your tour by continent, and within seconds, you have zoomed right into something interesting. In the span of a few minutes, I had gone from looking over the shoulders of some scientists on a hike in Antarctica to looking down a rural stretch of highway in Japan to squinting through a fog-filled town center in Scotland.

The benefit of using the Google Map platform is that a user can stay a while in a spot, too, and use the navigation buttons to pull back and get a wider lens on the experience, or shift the view of the window to something else. MapCrunch also provides search nagivation by country or by continent. There is also a slideshow feature. And an interesting overlay on an image shows the latitude and longitude of the location that is being featured.

One word of warning: in the upper right corner of the MapCrunch site, there is a link for Streetviewfunny.com, which is another mash-up of images taken from around the world that is supposed to show funny or strange things taken from Google Street View images. I scanned through and did not find anything too objectionable, but a prepared teacher might want to consider this link when they bring students to MapCrunch.

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BY JASON DON FORSYTHE

Google Maps Mania is a blog that highlights the different ways Google Maps and Google Earth mashups are trending, and the educational value that they have. What is a mashup you say? It’s when you take one geographical element and superimpose or put it side by side with another. For example, if you wanted to see how big the Great Wall of China would stretch if it has been started in Slovakia, there’s a map for that.

Many students’ conceptions of spatial relations when it comes to geography is sorely lacking — outside of what they know locally, it’s hard to conceptualize how big other parts of the planet are in comparison. This is where mashup maps really can open students’ eyes to the vastness of the world they live in. The comparison angle is just one way Google Maps are being used, however. Google Maps Mania is a treasure trove of different types of projects and ideas for schools to use cartography.

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BY CHRISTOPHER PANNA

We’ve come a long way from the days of using a map to memorize the 50 states. With animation and narration, a map can show that geography doesn’t just sit there; it plays a role in shaping ideas and events. Try these animated maps to show the interplay between history and geography.

The Map as History: With a captivating British accent, the narrator sets the stage and the maps zoom around as pictures appear to illustrate events. The maps are about mostly modern European history, but they recently added series about the United States and Ancient Greece, and they’re working on more. The catch is that only a handful are available for free. However, the reasonable subscription rates would make it a good value for both your students and other teachers in your school.

Maps of War: Don’t be misled by the name; this site also has maps that illustrate the spread of religion and democracy from ancient times to the present. We’ve touched on Maps of War before, but it’s worth another look. This thematic design is great for showing a big picture view of history. And these maps are just as visually engaging, with colors and events appearing as the story advances.

Watching these animations will help your students see connections between places and events, as well as inspire them in some creative map making of their own. Give them a blank map and some tools -– as high-tech as an image editing program or as simple as a few colored pens -– and see what they produce.

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BY NICK YINGLING

One of my fondest memories growing up was this time when my friends and I found an old treasure map. We eventually ran afoul of a family of gangsters, but my one heavyset buddy was able to befriend the deformed son of the head gangster, Mama Fratelli. Just as the gangsters caught up with us, Chunk and his new friend, Sloth, were able to swoop in and save the day. We were, truly, a bunch of Goonies. No, wait—there I go again, confusing myself with Corey Feldman.

That image you get in your mind when you imagine treasure maps isn’t just fascinating because of the promise of riches. That classic example of some old, yellow, frayed-at-the-edges map also maybe has some crazy artwork of an agitated seabeast where there be dragons or something. You can just feel the wonder of exploration resonating from old-world cartography.

The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection has been busy scanning these old maps and making them available free-of-charge in digital high-resolution images. (more…)

BY NICK YINGLING

According to the plot summary for Teen Wolf on Wikipedia, “High school student Scott Howard is seventeen years old, sick of being average and wishing he were special… Scott keeps undergoing changes and eventually undergoes a complete change and becomes a wolf… During the final basketball game, Scott refuses to “wolf out” and insists on winning the game on his own.”

Isn’t that heart-warming? The message is just be yourself!

So, what does Teen Wolf have to do with anything here? (more…)

BY BILL FERRIS

Set course for Wikipedia! Facebook ahoy! And so on. These quaint nautical terms arose from a time when people depended on maps and charts much more crude than the Mapquest and GPS-enabled phones to which we’ve grown accustomed. The internet, a mistress as untamable as the seven seas of yore, is the subject of the Internet Mapping Project, a modern-day cartographic endeavor commissioned by Kevin Kelly, author of the Cool Tools blog and lots of other ‘net niftiness. Kelly has called for amateur Rand McNallys everywhere to “Please draw a map of the internet, as you see it. Indicate your ‘home.’”

(more…)

We here at Instructify love to hear from you. Would you like to leave some feedback on this posting or just send me a message? Simple: just go up on your roof and paint your remarks in big, block letters. If you’re in a rural area, you might arrange some rocks in a field. Then in the comments section under each posting simply send us the coordinates.

Yeah, I suppose maybe you could leave the actual comments in the comments section, Captain Buzzkill. I’m just trying to get you motivated about different ways that you might possibly use Google Earth.

Maybe you might be interested in using Google Earth to explore the Civil War, look at the global diamond trade, or engage students in math and geometry by looking at different mountains’ ski slopes. Take a look at these lesson plans for Google Earth, for example. You’ll find lessons spread out across five content areas: social studies, math, science, language arts, and cross curricular. The lessons start at basic how-tos for users (which aren’t just for stinking newbies — experienced users might even find new features to investigate), then branch out into both student-controlled and teacher-controlled lessons.

The best part is that these lesson plans are already prepared for you. The file formats will vary, but now you don’t have to stay up until 1 a.m. doing prep work and planning. Who knows? This new abundance of time might afford you the chance to start a new hobby…like arranging cryptic messages for satellites to read. I’m just saying. -NICK YINGLING

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Many, many changes have taken place in the world since we last visited Google Earth. I don’t mean changes in the outside world. No, that’s a terrible place! I mean the world you can explore inside of the latest update for Google Earth.

Google Earth 5 has a bunch of new content for you to use in the classroom. In fact, there are too many new features for me to break down in a short amount of time. So here is a quick spotlight on them.

1. First, as always, set aside five minutes for your students to locate their own house. It is inevitable.
2. See how places have changed thanks to more historical image content. Not only is it cool to watch buildings grow and towns expand, but this is also useful for lessons on the environment. Check out urban sprawl, tropical deforestation in the rain forests and the melting of ice caps.
3. The Earthquake layer is very cool. Every site is linked to info about the magnitude, depth and date of the earthquake. Zoom way out and it pretty much paints a picture of where the tectonic plates are all fussing and feuding.
4. The Touring feature allows users to create and share narrated tours as they move around in Google Earth. I’m not quite sold on this one, personally. Then again, people have described me as being a spleen. But let’s be honest—even the best tour is still a tour. Google Earth is most fun when you go off the beaten path and explore.
5. Google Mars 3D allows you to check out high-res images and terrain of the angry red planet. I’ve just spent 20 minutes bumping around Cydonia looking for the Face on Mars. The first person to provide me some coordinates wins a chance to hear me discuss the 2000 sci-fi movie Mission to Mars.
6. One of the biggest and most publicized additions to Google Earth is all of the ocean-related content. With numerous content layers from scientists and researchers, you can now explore the other 70 percent of our planet. Check out the Mariana Trench and a bunch of shipwrecks.

The classroom uses for Google Earth are plentiful, so I don’t think you’ll run into problems working it into a lesson or two. -NICK YINGLING

UPDATE — They found the lost city of Atlantis! But then the Illuminati were quick to discredit that. Hm, weird… My coffee tastes like almonds now. That’s strange…adgrgfd….

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I don’t envy you geography teachers. Ever since Pangaea split apart over 100 million years ago you’ve been stuck dealing with the same seven shapes. Sure, every once in a while a landmass changes names because of a change in ownership, but you have to admit that an awful lot of maps look the same.

Not so with SHOW/WORLD, which bills itself as “a new way to look at the world.” The premise is simple; you select a topic, such as population or CO2 emissions, and the traditional map transforms into a new map based on the data for that topic. For example, China appears larger on the population map, as it represents 19 percent of the world’s total population. The United States looks enormous on the armed forces spending map, as it accounts for 45 percent of what the world invests in the military. Topics range from education to energy, technology to tourism, and many other points in between.

While it’s true that this site is quite similar to Worldmapper, SHOW/WORLD has more to offer. In addition to maps that are re-sized in relation to a given topic, SHOW/WORLD provides percentages and overall rankings for individual countries compared to the rest of the world. There’s also a space for recommended reading, as well as a comments section. In short, SHOW/WORLD is a great resource for geography teachers searching for new variations on the same old world map. -JIMI RADABAUGH

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By now, I assume that many of your students are interested in an upcoming event involving two major political parties and several men named Joe (Biden, Six-Pack, The Plumber). I also gather that this country called America is divided into 50 territories, known as “states.” It would appear that these “states” have something to do with determining the outcome of next week’s big event, which is why USDemocrazy.net is so extraordinarily useful.

Developed by the political cartoonist for The Economist and students at the University of Maryland, USDemocrazy.net provides an informative and entertaining look at state politics. The main page of the site is a humorous map of the United States, displaying amusing, alternate names for each state. For example, Wisconsin is called “Cheesehead,” California is renamed “Dude,” and our great state of North Carolina is referred to as “North Barbecue.” Clicking on a particular state will reveal relevant state facts, such as the percentage of votes cast for or against George W. Bush in the prior two elections, famous and infamous natives, as well as the state’s overall political climate. Each state is also rated on a scale of one to five for political craziness.

Whether shedding more light on the intricacies of the Electoral College or highlighting distinctions among neighbors, USDemocrazy.net is a valuable resource for teachers. And even if you’re not crazy about the American political process, it would be foolish to ignore a site as witty and unique as USDemocrazy.net. –JIMI RADABAUGH

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The problem with crystal balls is that it’s really hard to see the future in them unless you’re a wizard, fortune teller, or some other type of prophecy professional. If only the future were clearly laid out for us on a digital, interactive map…

Non-clairvoyant teachers rejoice!
The Map of Future Forces Affecting Education provides a fascinating look into the next decade of public education in the United States. The map allows you to navigate through an assortment of color-coded boxes, each representing a particular social trend or dilemma. Clicking on any box will provide a short description of the trend along with the option to “dive deeper into this trend.” At this point, a more detailed explanation of the issue is given, along with related videos and the opportunity to join the discussion by leaving a comment. I highly recommend watching the videos, as they present each topic in a way that is both straightforward and engaging.

It is a compliment to the folks at the Knowledgeworks Foundation that this site asks more questions than it answers. Rather than plotting a direct course, this map will point teachers down a multi-layered road, encouraging new ideas to address tomorrow’s problems. So now if you’d like to know where education in this country is headed, all you have to do is look at a map. –JIMI RADABAUGH

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When I think “maps in the classroom,” I think: struggling with spring-loads, explaining out-dated political boundaries, and approximating locations off the map by pointing to a blank spot on the wall. It doesn’t have to be that way. Instructify has already written up a number of great websites (see related stuff below!) for changing the way you use maps in your classroom, and now we’ve got one more to add to the list: Wanderlust, brought to you by GOOD Magazine.

Wanderlust is an interactive graphic that allows you to take a gander at a number of famous paths. You’ll find factual routes (like Amelia Earhart’s second attempt to circumnavigate the globe) and fictitious routes (like Jules Verne’s A Journey to the Center of the Earth) and routes that are somewhere in between (like the Pan-Am Highway). Each of these historic journeys is plotted with points of interest, although, don’t expect too much content — it’s just a graphic after all. Wanderlust would be an ideal device to spice up a presentation. -MARIELLE PRINCE

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Have you ever tried to have every computer in your class, or better yet, every computer in your lab go to Google Earth at the very same time? If you haven’t, don’t because those of us who have done this, have often earned the unending enmity of our school/district tech support. This is because there is no surer way to bring a network to its knees than running Google Earth, especially multiple copies from one site or node on a network. After many cookies, and cheerful smiles, you may repair that relationship with your network administrator. But how do you use Google Earth (a really wow tool) without causing a Google Earthquake on your network?

Your first option is to “cache” some of the big image files used in Google Earth. A less time and technically intensive solution is available though. Google Maps is starting to get a lot of the functionality of Google Earth, with less memory and bandwidth. Recent upgrades will let you add placemarks, and images to a map, and to save and share that information on maps. There are some “basic” overlays of photos and Wikipedia entries that can be added, and views include a satellite option. You can even export KML files to Google Earth. People are starting to do Google Lit Trips on Maps.

Don’t let “poor” memory keep you from using Google to teach geography in your class or lab, just use Google Maps instead. -ALICE MERCER

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By now, you’ve probably heard of Google Earth, a web-based program that lets users view satellite images of our planet and see locations all over the world. Well, imagine Google Earth plus access to the massive amount of geoscientific data and information that scientists have discovered about the world, and you’ve got Dapple Earth Explorer.

Dapple is a global data explorer that makes it easy to find and visualize the huge quantities of geoscientific data available on the Internet, including satellite imagery, geology maps, geophysical data, and lots of other earth data. Derived from the NASA World Wind open source project, Dapple is a free, downloadable program that lets you browse graphically rich data from global and corporate spatial servers – Geosoft DAP servers, NASA servers, USGS servers, ArcIMS servers, and lots of others.

Despite how complicated that may sound, Dapple’s interface is easy to use, and lets you access more geoscientifc data than you will ever need (unless, of course, you are a geoscientist). Not only can you take your students on a trip around the word, you can give them a little taste of the world of geoscience, too. Who knows, you might even have some budding geoscientists in your class! -LAUREN FROHNE

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